Treasured (17 page)

“Who? Do you think Hamish decided to prowl about at midnight?”

“No. I have no idea why anyone would. There is nothing to do.”

“Are you
certain
there was someone there?” Coll asked bluntly.

Jack narrowed his eyes at the other man. “You think I made this up?” Jack’s voice was calm and quiet but was all the more dangerous for it.

“I think things can look different in the Highland mist, especially to a city dweller.”

“London has been known to have a bit of fog itself, so I am not entirely unfamiliar with it. I have never known it to shove open doors or to make it appear that a man is running down a path.”

“No, of course not.” Isobel sent a warning glance at Coll. “I am sure Coll did not mean to imply anything. It is just so odd, one doesn’t know what to make of it.”

“I’m going to take a look around,” Jack decided.

“But you cannot hope to find anyone,” Isobel protested. “Not at this time of the night and in the fog.”

“I’ll take a lantern like Munro.” He nodded toward Coll. “I am sure there’s one in the house.”

“Nay, I’ll go. I am already about and fully dressed.” Coll
cast a pointed glance at Jack’s shirt. “You should take Miss Rose back inside ’fore she catches her death of cold.”

Jack bristled, and Isobel slipped her hand through his arm, curling her fingers securely around it. “Yes, please do, Jack. I
am
rather chilled. And Coll is more familiar with the place, anyway.”

Jack gave Isobel a long, considering look. She could feel his muscles tighten beneath her hand, and for a moment she feared he would refuse. But then he inclined his head slightly. “Of course. It would be my pleasure.” He turned his cool, assessing gaze on Coll. “You will give me a report tomorrow.”

Coll stared back for a long moment, then gave Jack a nod, tugging at his cap in a way that should have been respectful but came out mocking. Isobel glared at her friend. Jack had clearly taken an immediate and unreasonable dislike to Coll, but Coll was not helping matters.

She gave a small but insistent tug on Jack’s arm, and to her relief he turned away from Coll and started with her back toward the house. Coll walked in the other direction, and after a moment his figure was swallowed in the fog.

“Surly sort,” Jack commented.

“Not usually.” Isobel looked up to find him watching her.

“Mm. No doubt he is different with you.” As they walked on, Jack continued in a casual way, “Odd, don’t you think, that Munro was out at this hour?”

The nerves in Isobel’s stomach tightened. She wondered if Jack had seen the lights on the island, too. He would not know anything about the recent incidents or the men involved in them, but he might well suspect Coll of being the
intruder he had chased away. She could not imagine why Coll would have come secretly into the house, but if he had done so, she knew he had a good reason for it. Jack, however, would assume Coll had been there to steal something.

“The gamekeeper’s cottage is quite near,” she explained. “Perhaps Coll was taking a walk before bed.”

“Yes, that’s a possibility.”

“Or he might have been looking for poachers,” she went on, struck by inspiration. “No doubt they lay traps and come to take their catch in the dark of the night.”

“No doubt.” Jack opened the door, and they stepped into the house. As they walked down the hall, he went on in the same neutral voice, “Rather familiar for a servant.”

“Coll’s not a servant.” Isobel stopped and faced Jack.

“Yes, I know; you’ve explained, he’s the gamekeeper. Still, he is an employee.”

“He’s a friend.”

Jack arched one eyebrow in a way she found particularly annoying. “And do you always greet friends thus attired?” He swept an encompassing glance down at the nightgown she wore beneath his jacket.

“No!” Isobel blushed, which made her doubly irritated. “Of course not. I did not set out to greet anyone. I heard you shout, so I thought you might be in trouble. I ran out to
help
you.”

“Or to warn someone,” he murmured.

“What?” Isobel stared at him. “Have you gone mad? You think I would be party to breaking into my own home?”

“What I think is that you had best have a care.” Jack came closer, his voice low but threaded with danger. “Ours may not be a love match, but do not think that I am so complaisant
a husband that I will turn my head while my wife dallies with another man.”

Isobel gaped at him, outrage slamming through her. “You think Coll was coming here to meet me? That we were—that we had a tryst?”

“What else should I think?” Jack retorted. “The fellow is always hanging about you.”

“That’s nonsense.”

“Is it? You ran to him straightaway the day I arrived at Baillannan. And I’ve seen you with him since.”

“Are you spying on me?” Isobel bridled.

“Of course not. But I can scarcely look out the window without seeing him. The man is everywhere. Tonight someone tries to get into the house, and when I go down to investigate, who should appear out of nowhere but your ‘friend’ Munro? And there you are, clad in nothing but your night rail, your hair down about your shoulders.” His voice thickened slightly as his eyes went to the thick fall of her honey-gold hair.

“You are being ridiculous.” Isobel pushed back her hair, shifting under his gaze.

“Am I? The lady of the manor is not usually ‘friends’ with the gamekeeper. Munro is insolent and far too familiar with you. I will not have my wife—”

“Stop saying your
wife
as if I were your property!” Isobel stabbed her forefinger into his chest. It felt so satisfying, she did it again. “You may own everything else here at Baillannan, but you do not own me.”

“I don’t care to own you, believe me, for I am sure you are far more trouble than you are worth, like everything else in this benighted place. But I have no intention of marrying
you to provide you the cover of respectability while you settle down here with your lover.”

Isobel drew in an enraged breath and swung her hand to slap him, but Jack caught her by the wrist. She tried to jerk her hand from his grasp, but his grip was too tight. The light in his eyes made her think Jack was enjoying their confrontation, even anticipating whatever fire came next.

Suddenly the air around her was so hot and stifling that Isobel could barely breathe. She was afraid that she might swoon, thoroughly humiliating herself—and, worse, that Jack might catch her, his arms sliding around her to keep her upright, her head settling against his hard chest.

The jacket was causing her to be so warm, she told herself, and she started to shrug out of it, but stopped, remembering the way the soft cotton of the nightgown had revealed the curves of her body, barely shading the dark circles of her nipples. Jack’s eyes were already sliding down to the rise and fall of her bosom; it would be pure folly to remove the covering of his jacket. Isobel self-consciously grasped the lapels and pulled them together. He smiled faintly, and the heat in his eyes only deepened at her action. He leaned forward slightly.

Isobel jerked her arm from his grasp. “What a charming opinion you have of your future wife. I can only wonder that you would consent to marry a woman you consider a trollop. Clearly the idea of our marriage was a mistake.”

She whirled and started toward the stairs, but Jack grabbed her wrist and spun her back around. Her heart jolted as he seized her arms, his hands clamping firmly around them. “No. I don’t think it was a mistake at all.” Jack pulled her flush against his body, and his mouth came down on hers.

He pinned her against the wall with his weight, bracing his forearms on either side of her head as he drank her in. She was trapped by his strength, permeated with his heat. And she had never felt so eager, so fierce, so consumed by need.

Making a low animal noise she did not even recognize, she thrust her body up against him and wrapped her arms around his neck, taking his mouth as fervently as he took hers. Her breasts were pressed into his chest, blossoming with a sweet, harsh ache. She twisted a little against him, delighting in the friction of the cloth across her sensitive nipples, and wishing in a primitive, incoherent way that his jacket were not around her, blocking even closer contact.

As if Jack had sensed her thoughts, he slipped his hands under the jacket, fingers spreading out over her waist. They moved slowly up her body, coming up at last to cup her breasts and send her heart into a frenzied beat. His mouth left hers and he kissed the curve of her jaw, moving down onto her neck. She would have protested the loss of his lips on hers had they not been igniting bright frissons of pleasure all through her body.

He murmured her name against her skin, the touch of his breath, his lips, his tongue, all arousing her in a way she had never dreamed possible. His hands slid down over her hips and his fingers clenched in the cloth of her gown, gathering the material and dragging it upward. Air kissed her bare legs, and she shuddered, aware of an ache deep within her, growing, swelling into a hunger so profound and insistent it frightened her. In another moment, she thought, she would be lost, drowning and consumed.

With a soft cry, she broke away. For an instant she stared at him. His face was flushed, the flesh drawn tautly across his sharp, high cheekbones. He radiated a power barely held in check, his eyes bright and fierce. He held her with his gaze, as tangible as a touch. She wanted to throw herself back into his arms.

Instead, she turned and fled up the stairs to her room.

I
sobel awoke the next morning
with a pounding headache and a deep realization that she had behaved in an appalling manner. After Jack had all but accused her of being a wanton, she had melted in his arms, no doubt confirming his suspicions. She could not imagine what had come over her. Isobel covered her face with her hands, letting out a groan, as she thought about facing Jack again. It would be humiliating. Worse than humiliating.

How had everything veered so badly from her plan? She had not expected her engagement or marriage to be smooth, but she had imagined an entirely different set of hardships—giving up the hope of falling in love, letting go of the desire to have children, settling herself to the knowledge that she would grow old alone. It had not occurred to her that Jack would infuriate her as he had last night, that he would think such base and untrue things about her, or that she would let him kiss her and fondle her and, well, treat her like the
doxy he presumed her to be. Far worse than that, she had
enjoyed
it. It made her blush to recall how passionately she had kissed him, how her flesh had quivered beneath his caresses.

Jack would have realized how she had been consumed with lust; he had to, an experienced man such as he. He had been fully aware of how much he tempted and aroused her. And that was the most lowering thought of all.

She could not bring herself to go down to breakfast and make polite conversation with Jack in front of the servants and her aunt. But she knew she had to deal with the matter. Midmorning, after she had taken her breakfast of tea and toast in her room, she picked up Jack’s jacket, folding it carefully over her arm, and went downstairs in search of him.

Unfortunately she found him in the library with her aunt. Isobel paused at the doorway, tempted to beat a cowardly retreat, but Elizabeth caught sight of her.

“Isobel! How are you, dear? I was afraid you might have taken ill when we did not see you at breakfast this morning.”

“I am fine. I was just . . . I woke rather late.” Isobel steeled herself to look at Jack.

“Good morning, Isobel,” he said, rising and coming forward. “I trust you had a restful night.” He smiled down at her, his eyes glinting.

“Yes. I slept quite well.” She set her jaw.

“I cannot see how you could,” Aunt Elizabeth put in. “The spirits were putting on a show last night.”

“Excuse me?” Isobel looked at her aunt.

Elizabeth chuckled. “The lights on the island, dear.”

“Your aunt and I were discussing the unfortunate souls doomed to a restless afterlife on the island in the loch,” Jack put in.

“There were noises, as well,” Elizabeth added. “I distinctly heard voices.”

“Surely not.” Isobel struggled for a light tone. “The island is some distance.”

“The voices were much closer than that. I was telling Mr. Kensington that the house has its share of ghosts. The laird who built it, you know, was said to have strangled his mistress and walled her up in the cellars as the house was being constructed.”

“Aunt Elizabeth, you will have Mr. Kensington thinking we are a dastardly lot.”

“On the contrary. I find the Roses fascinating. Especially the women of the family.”

Isobel avoided looking at him, carefully picking an infinitesimal bit of lint from the dark blue jacket over her arm. It occurred to her that the coat was much the color of Jack’s eyes, which was a perfectly idiotic thing to be thinking about.

“I am sure your ancestors were equally interesting, Mr. Kensington,” Elizabeth continued pleasantly.

“I fear I haven’t the knowledge of my ancestors that you display, ma’am,” Jack responded politely.